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Coastal Heritage Society workers restore doorway to history

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Charles Adkins, left, Justin Rowles, not shown, Amy VerBeek, center, and Jess King, right, guide Jeremy Bloomfield, not shown, as he uses a forklift to hoist a restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, into place on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday. Eventually, the building will house a planned children's museum.

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Amy VerBeek, left, and Jess King, center, guide Jeremy Bloomfield, not shown, as he uses a forklift to move a restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, from the Paint Shop Building, which still has the original doors, to the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday.

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team from left; Charles Adkins, Jess King, Amy VerBeek and Justin Rowles watch a restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, as it is hoisted into place on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum by a forklift used by Jeremy Bloomfield, not shown, Thursday.

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Justin Rowles, left, watches Charles Adkins, top, make sure the restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, is in place as Jess King, center, and Amy VerBeek, right, take the strap off so they can use it to hoist the next restored door to go up on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday.

Savannah Morning News

Member of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Jeremy Bloomfield uses a forklift to hoist a restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, into place on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday.

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Justin Rowles, left, watches Charles Adkins, top, make sure the restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, is in place as Jess King, center, and Amy VerBeek, right, take the strap off so they can use it to hoist the next restored door to go up on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday.

Savannah Morning News

Members of the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team Charles Adkins, left, Justin Rowles, not shown, Amy VerBeek, center, and Jess King, right, guide Jeremy Bloomfield, not shown, as he uses a forklift to hoist a restored door measuring 8 feet wide and 17 feet high, and weighing half a ton, into place on the Coach Shop Building at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum Thursday. Eventually, the building will house a planned children's museum.

A hefty blend of old wood and new ideas, four rejuvenated doors now adorn the Coach Shop Building after being cautiously swung into place by the Coastal Heritage Society's Preservation Team.

The shop, part of the Roundhouse Railroad Museum, sat still and dilapidated for years. Now, cleared of debris and the tangled-together trees that had thrived in its greenhouse-like atmosphere, it has a new place in the plan to restore the Roundhouse.

"This is where the children's museum will be," said CHS marketing director Michael Jordan, carefully stepping through freshly gouged tracks and talking about possible exhibits aimed at children.

Just a few feet away, Amy VerBeek was intently focused on the immediate - and with good reason. She was supervising the hanging of one of the doors, an 8-foot-wide, 17-foot-high behemoth that weighed some 1,000 pounds.

Like the rest of her crew, VerBeek wore a hard hat and grimy jeans, a concession to the danger and a confirmation of the demands their labor entailed.

"You've got to have a passion for this," said VerBeek, a 27-year-old native of Holland, Mich., who graduated from SCAD earlier this year with a degree in historic preservation.

The four doors, which had to be manhandled into position with the help of a forklift, were part heart pine - the original material - and part Southern yellow pine, the replacement component. The Southern yellow pine has been pressure treated, and all the refurbished doors have been coated with mildew-resistant paint.

Once they've all been tweaked and treated, 12 of these enormous doors will hang along the front of the shop. Two of them now gleam with a dark coat of bottle-green paint, the historically accurate hue for the shop, said VerBeek.

The four doors hung this week will soon be painted that color.

The other six doors droop in various stages of disrepair, dour reminders that the circa-1920s shop's heyday has long passed.

VerBeek, however, is not daunted by the challenge of repairing them.

"I love taking things apart and then putting them back together correctly," she said.

If You Go

What: Roundhouse Railroad Museum

Where: 601 W. Harris St.

Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

Admission: $4.25 adults; $3.75 military, seniors 55 and up, students with ID, AAA, current and former railroad workers; free for children under 6 with parent or guardian.